Standing Out from the Crowd  

Below are some writing (and interviewing) techniques that help you stand out from the crowd.  You want your application to be MEMORABLE.

Work from your life

• Draw on your personal life and experiences to find truthful and unique examples, anecdotes, feelings, and turning points that you can discuss with passion.  Honesty and sincerity come through in your writing.

Be who you are

• If you want to stand out, be who you are.  Don’t just say what you think the selection committee wants to hear. Answer outside the box.
• Colorless neutrality and safe, cliché answers do not make you memorable. Don’t try to hide who you are if you want to be remembered.

Know what makes you different

• How do you think you are special, unusual, or distinctive as a person and/or student?  Try to create opportunities for these qualities to come through in the application. 
• What anecdotes, accomplishments, or examples can demonstrate how/why you are distinctive and worthy of support?

• Grab attention with your openings, and try to have a neatly phrased and memorable ending, too.

• Telling the story of a pertinent, personal experience is a great way to start an essay or an interview question response.  It helps you come up with a unique answer with memorable, powerful images and ideas, and it is a great way to catch the reviewers’ attention.
• Stories, images, metaphors, analogies, epiphanies, feelings — all of these are good. They give your answers power and impact.

Tell the truth, then tell the moral of the story

• It can be an effective technique to recount a personal story that does not necessarily show you in the best light IF you use it as a springboard into showing what you have learned or how an experience changed your direction and goals.
• (But use this device only once within an application.)